Even if you don’t recognize Jordan Nollman by name, you probably recognize a lot of his work, and definitely recognize the names he’s worked for: Astro, IDEO, Ziba, Eleven, Razorfish, etc. After a successful six years at Astro, though, Nollman has decided to leave, in favor of working independently for personal care product firm – Clio, and his own – Sprout Studios.

Over at Creative Seeds, Carl Alviani has a nice little interview with Jordan, touching on royalites, his career so far, the attraction of going indy, and where all the designers in Boston live. Here he is on the importance of design school:A lot of the basic, practical stuff, you can learn in high school: drawing and computer skills. What I learned in design school, more than anything, was how to talk to people and learn things from them. It’s funny, I didn’t actually receive my degree until three years ago–I had three Spanish classes to complete!–but I don’t think a single employer ever checked up on this. If you’ve got a good portfolio and good references, that’s what they pay attention to.